#Without plants, Earth would cook under billions of tons of additional carbonenhanced growth of Earth's leafy greens during the 20th century has slowed significantly the planet's transition to being red-hot according to the first study to specify the extent to which plants have prevented climate change
Researchers based at Princeton university found that land ecosystems have kept the planet cooler by absorbing billions of tons of carbon especially during the past 60 years.
The planet's land-based carbon sink--or carbon-storage capacity--has kept 186 billion to 192 billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere
The planet has warmed by only 0. 74 degrees Celsius (1. 3 degrees Fahrenheit) since the early 1900s and the point at
#Maximizing broccolis cancer-fighting potentialspraying a plant hormone on broccoli--already one of the planet's most nutritious foods--boosts its cancer-fighting potential
and remains a widespread vector-borne infectious disease sickening almost half a billion people every year around the planet.
They take almost no space at all. Lead authors are Rice postdoctoral researcher Zheng Liu and graduate student Yongji Gong.
hydrogenfor astrophysicists the interplay of hydrogen--the most common molecule in the universe--and the vast clouds of dust that fill the voids of interstellar space has been an intractable puzzle of stellar evolution.
The dust astronomers believe is a key phase in the life cycle of stars which are formed in dusty nurseries throughout the cosmos.
and is oriented by the magnetic fields in deep space has proved a six-decade-long theoretical challenge.
The theory describes how dust grains in interstellar space like soldiers in lock-drill formation spin
The effort promises to untangle a theoretical logjam about key elements of the interstellar medium and underpin novel observational tactics to probe magnetic fields in space.
The new observations conducted by a team led by B-G Andersson of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA)
and their theoretical implications are to be reported in the Oct 1 2013 edition of the Astrophysical Journal.
and structure of magnetic fields in interstellar space a notoriously difficult phenomenon to measure quantitatively. Interstellar magnetic fields are ubiquitous in spiral galaxies like our Milky way
and are believed to be essential regulators of star formation and the evolution of proto-planetary disks.
and the space-based Planck Telescope--are poised to build on the new results. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The above story is provided based on materials by The Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR.
Trees and shrubs have added the benefit of providing shade from hot sun and shelter from rain.
and the fertilizer plant explosion in West Texas those spaces are becoming smaller in geography
Researchers at Aarhus University have reached this conclusion by making use of the rapidly increasing amount of data from satellites that monitor the global environment with a high level of detail.
into the interstellar medium of our galaxy. Most surprising to the scientists is why a dramatic shift in the magnetic field that they had modeled
and were expecting after the craft left the dominant influence of the Sun's heliosphere did not occur
In the case of the Voyager 1 crossing the heliopause separates material created by the sun from material that surrounds the stars throughout the galaxy.
Because the sun is moving through the interstellar medium it creates a bow wave as well. Outside the heliosphere there is a 40-fold increase in plasma density.
Recently NASA announced that measurements of the effects on Voyager 1 of a March 2012 coronal mass ejection indicated that it had ventured beyond the heliopause to begin its venture out into interstellar space.
and plasma created by other stars. When Voyager 1 will be completely beyond the influence of the sun is unknown.
The milestone means the craft has become the first human-made object to venture into interstellar space.
It's now about 12 billion miles from the sun in a transitional region immediately outside the solar bubble.
As modeled and expected the density data from Voyager 1 did show a density change
Based on work by Doyle T. Hall in 1992 Dr. Fayock has created a model that describes how light is reflected by neutral hydrogen atoms coming from the interstellar medium and drifting through the heliosphere.
Neutral particles from space travel through the electrons and ions in the solar boundary and swap electrons with the plasma inside the boundary to generate another highly energized hydrogen atom called an energetic neutral atom (ENA.
As the model gets farther from the sun things start to change based on the location of the heliopause he said.
His models extend out 900 astronomical units from the sun and so far 40 astronomical units have been compared to collected data.
The impact of the work Brian is doing is said significant Dr. Gary Zank heliophysics professor and director of the Center for Space Plasma and Aeronautic Research (CSPAR.
It's the IBEX satellite that's the hawk mapping the whole of space from its Earth orbit based on energetic neutral particles that stream in to it from outer space.
and the ability to use them to probe the physics of the very local interstellar medium and its magnetic field.
and blasting them out at a staggering 23 watts for a trip that NASA says now begins in interstellar space.
Thing is almost nobody On earth is learning from the old codger launched Sept. 5 1977 during the Saturday night fever disco dancing era primarily to study the planets.
Yet news from the geezer satellite keeps intriguing scientists. NASA expects it to send data through at least 2020
He paints a picture of a spacecraft constructed entirely of materials made by the sun even put together by people made of stuff made by the sun. It's a package totally of solar origin that scientists with a great degree of certainty say has shed itself of its creator
So when the sun burns out a few billion years from now and Earth ceases to exist
It's amazing that here we have endangered an species that's almost gone from the planet yet there's still so much we have yet to learn from it.
#Interstellar winds buffeting our solar system have shifted directionscientists including University of New hampshire astrophysicists involved in NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission have discovered that the particles streaming into the solar system from interstellar space have changed likely direction over the last 40 years.
The finding helps scientists map our location within the Milky way galaxy and is crucial for understanding our place in the cosmos through the vast sweep of time--where we've come from where we're currently located
and nature of our sun's heliosphere--the gigantic bubble that surrounds our solar system and helps shield us from dangerous incoming galactic radiation.
The data from the IBEX spacecraft show that neutral interstellar atoms are flowing into the solar system from a different direction than previously observed.
Interstellar atoms flow past Earth as the interstellar cloud surrounding the solar system passes the sun at 23 kilometers per second (50000 miles per hour.
IBEX and Ulysses directly measured neutral helium atoms as they coursed through the inner solar system.
while Ulysses'measurements were taken between 1. 3 and 2 times further from the sun. In the final analysis the direction of the wind obtained most recently by IBEX data differs from the direction obtained from the earlier measurements
we are moving through a changing interstellar medium. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of New hampshire.
Using a new satellite-based vegetation monitoring system researchers found that about 12 percent of the biomass has disappeared in this country that's more than twice the size of Texas
The study compared volatile profiles of five southern highbush blueberry cultivars (Farthing FL01-173 Scintilla Star
If the volatiles in this study are in fact the most important to the perception of blueberry flavor then'Star'may have the most consistent flavor in response to varying environmental factors they concluded.
Even though there is heightened awareness about the need for limited sun exposure and use of sunscreens we're still seeing far too many cases of skin cancer each year Dr. Dickinson said.
It could be useful for powering devices for use in extreme environments such as oil drilling the military and space.
how soil conditions minerals sun temperature climate altitude and other environmental factors affect the expression of genes in grapes and the chemistry of wine's aromas and color.
Though a small player still Uruguay is a rising star in the world's wine industry exporting about 17%of its production (over 20 million litres valued at $15 million in 2012;
Our findings provide novel evidence suggesting that certain fruits may be especially beneficial for lowering diabetes risk said senior author Qi Sun assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at HSPH and assistant professor at the Channing Division of Network
According to the researchers this type of forest is a unique carbon sink containing the most abundant land carbon stocks on the planet.
today the fertilizer it produces allows us to feed a population roughly a third larger than the planet could sustain without synthetic fertilizer.
Tae Seok Moon Phd and Fuzhong Zhang Phd both assistant professors of energy environmental and chemical engineering in the School of engineering & Applied science at Washington University;
Cyanobacteria that both photosynthesize and fix nitrogen separate the two activities either in space or in time.
In fact there are probably as many beetle species living in dung as there are bird species on this planet.
And Landsat satellites built by NASA and operated by the U s. Geological Survey help direct the crews to those forest areas needing attention.
and so sends back a strong signal to the Landsat detector that isn't present over burned areas explained Jeff Masek Landsat program scientist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md.
But the shortwave infrared band--added to Landsat satellites starting with Landsat 4--has a distinct spectral signature for burned areas.
While he also employs remote sensing data from other satellites Landsat is the satellite of choice Albury said.
Plus having two satellites orbiting halves the wait time for post-fire images. Now I've got those good clean gap-free scenes on a regular basis Albury said.
Natural processes that once created open spaces even within mature forests such as fire are controlled largely diminishing the availability of quality habitat.
Scant research makes it hard to provethe number of humans on the planet has doubled almost in the past 50 years
By the end of their run on the planet multituberculates had evolved complex teeth that allowed them to enjoy vegetarian diets
These two model classes characterize different portions of the environmental space or niche that crops and other species occupy Estes said.
In the new study Huang and Rice graduate student Tzu-Lin Sun partnered with colleagues Ming-Tao Lee at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research center (NSRRC) in Hsinchu Taiwan
In the experiments Sun used a needle-like glass pipette to partially aspirate and grab dye-filled GUVS
Satellites and recording stations document extreme eventsthe researchers working with Markus Reichstein took different approaches to their study from the ecosystem perspective.
or a storm satellites be directed at the area in question as quickly as possible so that the immediate effect can be recorded along with the long-term impact.
Knowing that for the entire planet is much more challenging. Taking advantage of the long-duration and high-altitude-profiling capabilities of the NSF Gulfstream V aircraft also known as HIAPER the HIPPO project was designed to take a'snapshot'of the global troposphere Earth's lowest atmospheric
#NASA fire towers in space watch for wildfires on the risethe Black forest wildfire this June was one of the most destructive in Colorado history in terms of homes lost.
Over the last 30 years we have seen an increase in hot and dry conditions that promote fire activity said Doug Morton a scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt Md.
And across the western U s. and Alaska satellites show an increase in the area that burns each year over that same time period.
Fire Monitoring from Space For more than a decade instruments on Terra and Aqua two of NASA's flagship Earth-observing satellites have scanned the surface of our planet for fires.
An instrument on both satellites the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) has revolutionized what scientists know about fire's role in land cover change ecosystem processes
and the global carbon cycle by allowing researchers to map characteristics of the global distribution of fires in remarkable detail.
The satellite provides two additional daily observations. Another instrument called the Ozone Mapper Profiler Suite
The project uses data from Landsat satellites a mission jointly operated by NASA and the U s. Geological Survey.
NASA recently launched the Landsat 8 and Suomi-NPP satellites which will provide information on fire fuels active fires aerosols and climate:
NASA satellites used to predict zebra migrationsone of the world's longest migrations of zebras occurs in the African nation of Botswana
to the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans--the largest salt pan system on the planet. Zebras walk an unmarked route that takes them to the next best place for grazing
High above Earth-orbiting satellites capture images of the zebras'movements on this epic trek as well as the daily change in environmental conditions.
While tracking animal movement with satellites has been accomplished many times Beck said he and his team combined that information with in depth use of environmental satellite data using a series of images of vegetation growth and rainfall taken over days and weeks.
To track the greening of leaves the researchers relied on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index data acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on board NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.
The original article was written by Lisa-Natalie Anjozian NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Note:
if ozone destruction had continued unabated and increasing CFCS further heated the planet the jet stream in the mid-latitudes would have shifted toward the poles expanding the subtropical dry zones and shifting the mid-latitude rain belts poleward.
#Climate change occurring ten times faster than at any time in past 65 million yearsthe planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate
Although some of the changes the planet will experience in the next few decades are baked already into the system how different the climate looks at the end of the 21st century will depend largely on how humans respond.
For instance the planet experienced a 5 Degree celsius hike in temperature 20000 years ago as Earth emerged from the last ice age.
By 2015 the varieties will be vying for space in grocery stores among the Empires Galas and Honeycrisps.
As our planet gets more crowded or we experience disasters like droughts and pests we can find ways of using existing croplands more efficiently.
The above story is provided based on materials by The Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*STAR.
research showsit might be easier than previously thought for a planet to overheat into the scorchingly uninhabitable runaway greenhouse stage according to new research by astronomers at the University of Washington and the University of Victoria published July 28 in the journal Nature Geoscience.
In the runaway greenhouse stage a planet absorbs more solar energy than it can give off to retain equilibrium.
which leaves the planet glowing-hot and forever uninhabitable as Venus is now. One estimate of the inner edge of a star's habitable zone is where the runaway greenhouse process begins.
The habitable zone is that ring of space around a star that's just right for water to remain in liquid form on an orbiting rocky planet's surface thus giving life a chance.
Revisiting this classic planetary science scenario with new computer modeling the astronomers found a lower thermal radiation threshold for the runaway greenhouse process meaning that stage may be easier to initiate than had been thought previously.
The habitable zone becomes much narrower in the sense that you can no longer get as close to the star as we thought before going into a runaway greenhouse said Tyler Robinson a UW astronomy postdoctoral researcher and second author on the paper.
The lead author is Colin Goldblatt of the University of Victoria. Though further research is called for the findings could lead to a recalibration of where the habitable zone begins
and ends with some planets having their candidacy as possible habitable worlds revoked. These worlds on the very edge got'pushed in'from our perspective--they are now beyond the runaway greenhouse threshold Robinson said.
The findings apply to planet Earth As well as the sun increases in brightness over time Earth too will move into the runaway greenhouse stage--but not for a billion and a half years or so.
Still it inspired the astronomers to write As the solar constant increases with time Earth's future is analogous to Venus's past.
of ecosystems that support some of the planet's most spectacular yet little-known large mammals.
and Mongolia the vast highlands and open spaces that once were populated by wild camel and wild yak Przewalski's horse chiru saiga antelope Tibetan gazelle kiang khulan and snow leopard are increasingly dominated by domestic goats and other livestock.
#Climate forecasts shown to warn of crop failuresclimate data can help predict some crop failures several months before harvest according to a new study from an international team including a research scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md.
Measurement of predicted particle decay with implications for dark matter searcha discovery facilitated by Rice university's contribution to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will impact scientists'search for dark matter in the universe.
and other models that could explain dark matter in the universe he said. There's still a whole range of possibilities
All organisms on our planet can be divided between prokaryotes (which include bacteria) and eukaryotes (which include humans plants and animals as well as fungi).
CLASLITE's high-resolution satellite imaging uncovered logging roads in Brunei and in the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
what even today is still a virtually forgotten and neglected area of##ur planet the Guiana Shield in the north of South america.
#Boldly illuminating biologys dark matteris space really the final frontier or are the greatest mysteries closer to home?
In cosmology dark matter is said to account for the majority of mass in the universe however its presence is inferred by indirect effects rather than detected through telescopes.
The biological equivalent is microbial dark matter that pervasive yet practically invisible infrastructure of life on the planet
and characterizing single genomes from complex environmental samples of millions of cells to provide a profound leap of understanding the microbial evolution on our planet.
One such trait involves an enzyme that bacteria commonly use for creating space within their protective cell wall
We interpreted millions of these bits of genetic information like distant stars in the night sky trying to align them into recognizable constellations.
Cosmologists have mapped only half of one percent of the observable universe and the path ahead in environmental genomics is similarly daunting.
#IBEX spacecraft images the heliotail, revealing an unexpected structurenasa's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft recently provided the first complete pictures of the solar system's downwind region revealing a unique and unexpected structure.
Researchers have theorized long that like a comet a tail trails the heliosphere the giant bubble in
which our solar system resides as the heliosphere moves through interstellar space. The first IBEX images released in 2009 showed an unexpected ribbon of surprisingly high energetic neutral atom (ENA) emissions circling the upwind side of the solar system.
With the collection of additional ENAS over the first year of observations a structure dominated by lower energy ENAS emerged
and starboard to distinguish the lobes as the heliosphere is the vessel that transports our solar system throughout the galaxy.
IBEX data show the heliotail is the region where the Sun's million mile per hour solar wind flows down
The slow solar wind heads down the tail in the port and starboard lobes at low-and mid-latitudes and at least around the Sun's minimum in solar activity fast solar wind flows down it at high northern and southern latitudes.
The IBEX spacecraft uses two novel ENA cameras to image and map the heliosphere's global interaction providing the first global views and new knowledge about our solar system's interaction with interstellar space.
IBEX is part of NASA's series of low-cost rapidly developed Small Explorer space missions. Southwest Research Institute in San antonio leads the IBEX mission with teams of national and international partners.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt Md. manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
what rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide mean for the planet Richardson cautioned. There is little doubt that as carbon dioxide continues to rise
Scientists of the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research have been following this natural spectacle via Earth observation satellites Terrasar-X from the German Space agency (DLR)
Benjamin I. Cook of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory;
and crop production will benefit animals people and the planet.''Agriculture is a potent sector for economic growth and rural development in many countries across Africa Asia and South america.
And the proteins--those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami--are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules
And the proteins--those little beads on the string that are designed to fold up like origami--are folded to position all these beads in three-dimensional space to perfectly wrap around those molecules
#The sun moth: A beautiful new species Stenoloba solaris from Chinascientist describe a new striking species of moth from China with an engaging wing pattern.
The new species Stenoloba solaris has inspired its name by the orange circular patch on its wings that resembles the rising sun. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys.
The newly described sun moth belongs to the Family noctuidae also known as owlet moths which refers to their robustly built bodies.
#Dusty surprise around giant black holeeso's Very Large Telescope Interferometer has gathered the most detailed observations ever of the dust around the huge black hole at the centre of an active galaxy.
Rather than finding all of the glowing dust in a doughnut-shaped torus around the black hole as expected the astronomers find that much of it is located above and below the torus.
These observations show that dust is being pushed away from the black hole as a cool wind--a surprising finding that challenges current theories
and tells us how supermassive black holes evolve and interact with their surroundings. Over the last twenty years astronomers have found that almost all galaxies have a huge black hole at their centre.
Some of these black holes are growing by drawing in matter from their surroundings creating in the process the most energetic objects in the Universe:
active galactic nuclei (AGN. The central regions of these brilliant powerhouses are ringed by doughnuts of cosmic dust 1 dragged from the surrounding space similar to how water forms a small whirlpool around the plughole of a sink.
It was thought that most of the strong infrared radiation coming from AGN originated in these doughnuts.
The newly-discovered dust forms a cool wind streaming outwards from the black hole. This wind must play an important role in the complex relationship between the black hole and its environment.
The black hole feeds its insatiable appetite from the surrounding material but the intense radiation this produces also seems to be blowing the material away.
It is still unclear how these two processes work together and allow supermassive black holes to grow
and evolve within galaxies but the presence of a dusty wind adds a new piece to this picture.
to collect enough light to observe faint objects This lets us study a region as small as the distance from our Sun to its closest neighbouring star in a galaxy tens of millions of light-years away.
and how supermassive black holes grow and evolve must now take into account this newly-discovered effect. HÃ nig concludes I am now really looking forward to MATISSE
what a space telescope with a diameter of over 100 metres would measure. 3 The hotter dust was mapped using the AMBER VLTI instrument at near-infrared wavelengths
By planting much closer together and causing them to branch like that you are able to fill up available space intercept light more quickly
Basso continued Ritchie's work and added new features to better predict the impact of agronomic management on crop yield over space and time.
Through SALUS Basso forecasted the impact of changes in temperature precipitation and CO2 emissions on wheat yield from contrasting environment across the planet.
and hopefully with less poverty and enough food for the planet Basso said. Story Source:
the importance of space seasonality and nitrogen. For example he said high inputs of nitrogen may hasten the transition of hemlock stands to hardwood species that provide scant winter cover.
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